Monday, Oct. 24, 1988
American Notes EXPLORERS
American children are apt to know two things about the North Pole. First, Santa Claus lives there. Second, Admiral Robert E. Peary was the first person to get there, on April 6, 1909. Evidently these two lessons could be equally elaborate fictions. Geographers have concluded that Peary probably missed the Pole. Now Peary's handwritten notes of sextant readings, compass bearings and the sun's altitudes have surfaced. They indicate that the explorer himself knew he was no closer than 105 nautical miles away, according to Baltimore astronomer-historian Dennis Rawlins. The jottings, found in an envelope dated April 5 and 6, 1909, by Peary's wife, note that the sun was rising steadily over a period of minutes. Had Peary been exactly at the North Pole, the sun would have remained stationary. Rawlins, who stumbled onto the secret in the Johns Hopkins library, believes Peary faked his accomplishment. Yet by instructing his wife to preserve the notes, Rawlins adds, "Peary himself took steps to ensure that the truth would survive."
Not all authorities agree with this interpretation, however, since the readings may have been taken at a different time. "Peary may not have reached the North Pole," said Gilbert Grosvenor, president of the National Geographic Society, which funded the Peary expedition, "but nothing in the document suggests he was a fake."